Treatment of New Special Ed teachers hired by MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And who is going to train these new special educators? And who is going to help them through all the paperwork? Sounds like school based special educators will be having to step up.

Oh 100% it will fall on the already burnt out SPED colleagues. Different district but I was apparently the only SPED teacher deemed competent enough by admin to do referrals - so they thought they could just dump that entire responsibility on me with no extra planning time or reduced caseload. I quit. Hopefully they learned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The special education teacher I work with is always complaining that she has so much work but it doesn’t look like it is more work than regular teachers. I think the work load for special education teachers is more cyclical and not spread out as much as for regular teachers. Resource class is a joke. She has 6-8 kids in there with a para and the kids mostly sit on their phones or chat with teacher or each other. For her co-taught classes, I do all the planning and most of the teaching and most of the grading. Yes, paperwork and meetings are tedious for special education teachers but many of us take work home, not just special education teachers.

What is her caseload? Have you interacted with any other special education teachers in the building? Does your school have any special self-contained programs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The special education teacher I work with is always complaining that she has so much work but it doesn’t look like it is more work than regular teachers. I think the work load for special education teachers is more cyclical and not spread out as much as for regular teachers. Resource class is a joke. She has 6-8 kids in there with a para and the kids mostly sit on their phones or chat with teacher or each other. For her co-taught classes, I do all the planning and most of the teaching and most of the grading. Yes, paperwork and meetings are tedious for special education teachers but many of us take work home, not just special education teachers.

The regular ed teachers I taught with probably also would have said some version of this- minus the phones. What they didn't see was my schedule, which was never the same year to year and included at a minimum both ELA and math (across multiple grade grades), study skills, and possibly science. I had my own resource classes to teach, typically with close to zero age appropriate curricula or resources (middle/high school). Before and after school duties because we were lumped in with the specials teachers. And of course being accountable for 25-50 IEPs being properly implemented when I didn't even have some of the kids in any classes at all. Then resentful regular ed teachers who couldn't be bothered to attend meetings or give a write up for me to speak on at the meeting. This is why we need desperate teachers from other countries to do this job.

[Anonymous]

I still think they should recruit homeless people bc they are americans and war vets that are used to similar war zones and they already have ptsd so its a win win for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still think they should recruit homeless people bc they are americans and war vets that are used to similar war zones and they already have ptsd so its a win win for everyone.

Hahaha. 100% in my years best school social worker by a mile was a veteran

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And who is going to train these new special educators? And who is going to help them through all the paperwork? Sounds like school based special educators will be having to step up.

Oh 100% it will fall on the already burnt out SPED colleagues. Different district but I was apparently the only SPED teacher deemed competent enough by admin to do referrals - so they thought they could just dump that entire responsibility on me with no extra planning time or reduced caseload. I quit. Hopefully they learned.

How is this different from other SpEd new hires? Hint: It’s not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pare ts, you would be up in arms with placards in front of central office of mcps decided to solve its math teacher shortage by importing a large group from the Philippines.

It's outrageous that mcps treats it's Special Needs children this way. What a disgrace!

They are very well trained teachers and our math teacher from the Philippines is awesome. If it weren’t for the behavior issues, they’d be fantastic.

I’m guessing they are better at math than at special education. Isn’t special education an afterthought in the Philippines. They will be shocked at the number of kids with ieps and 504s and all the different accommodations given in the US. Not to mention the combative parents

You’re think of Ethan whose mom doesn’t believe in meds to treat his ADHD but doesn’t want him to earn less than a 90%.

Those aren’t the kids they are being placed to teach. They are here for more severely disabled kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And who is going to train these new special educators? And who is going to help them through all the paperwork? Sounds like school based special educators will be having to step up.

Oh 100% it will fall on the already burnt out SPED colleagues. Different district but I was apparently the only SPED teacher deemed competent enough by admin to do referrals - so they thought they could just dump that entire responsibility on me with no extra planning time or reduced caseload. I quit. Hopefully they learned.

How is this different from other SpEd new hires? Hint: It’s not.

With regular new hires they typically might have some SPED degree or at least the intention of staying for a while and ideally gaining the experience to become a trusted coworker. There is no hope of that here- it's like TFA but worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And who is going to train these new special educators? And who is going to help them through all the paperwork? Sounds like school based special educators will be having to step up.

Oh 100% it will fall on the already burnt out SPED colleagues. Different district but I was apparently the only SPED teacher deemed competent enough by admin to do referrals - so they thought they could just dump that entire responsibility on me with no extra planning time or reduced caseload. I quit. Hopefully they learned.

How is this different from other SpEd new hires? Hint: It’s not.

With regular new hires they typically might have some SPED degree or at least the intention of staying for a while and ideally gaining the experience to become a trusted coworker. There is no hope of that here- it's like TFA but worse.

Most new hires are recent college grads.

The Filipino teachers have signed three year contracts. New hires don’t even have to stay three years if they decide MCPS is a poor fit.

[Anonymous]

are their contracts with MCPS or with a staffing agency? I'm most curious about how this works from an employer/employee perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:are their contracts with MCPS or with a staffing agency? I'm most curious about how this works from an employer/employee perspective.

Who could we ask?

Perhaps MCEA could provide us with those answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hiring special ed teachers from the Philippines? Is this the answer to the teacher shortage?

They'll speak Spanish....that's why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hiring special ed teachers from the Philippines? Is this the answer to the teacher shortage?

They'll speak Spanish....that's why.

Oops wrong language! Try again.

[Anonymous]

So new american teachers get 1 year contracts but immigrants get 3 year. They dont even have american certs or the debts that they incur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pare ts, you would be up in arms with placards in front of central office of mcps decided to solve its math teacher shortage by importing a large group from the Philippines.

It's outrageous that mcps treats it's Special Needs children this way. What a disgrace!

They are very well trained teachers and our math teacher from the Philippines is awesome. If it weren’t for the behavior issues, they’d be fantastic.

I’m guessing they are better at math than at special education. Isn’t special education an afterthought in the Philippines. They will be shocked at the number of kids with ieps and 504s and all the different accommodations given in the US. Not to mention the combative parents

You’re think of Ethan whose mom doesn’t believe in meds to treat his ADHD but doesn’t want him to earn less than a 90%.

Those aren’t the kids they are being placed to teach. They are here for more severely disabled kids.

Interesting. So they will be working in self contained classrooms?